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Kinder Morgan Pipleline Project

..here is an activist indigenous point of view. they are connected to all communities. they are leading the rest of turtle island in a way out of this trap we have set for ourselves and can't get out of. this is the more sane way to go forward. the crisis we face comes from politics and power and that is also where the solution lies. community control.

A deal to create North America’s largest energy infrastructure company may actually be aiming to persuade investors that oil and gas companies can still make money, says a newly-released memo to Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr.

The memo was drafted by senior officials in the petroleum resources branch at the federal Natural Resources Department shortly after a major merger was announced on Sept. 6, 2016, between two pipeline giants — Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. and Houston-based Spectra Energy. The memo said that the deal’s architects may have been trying to reassure investors at a time when oil and gas production was mired in a global slump....

Condition 26 of the environmental assessment certificate requires that Kinder Morgan provide citizens with bottled water should drinking water become contaminated.

“In the event that a spill originating from the Project is confirmed to have contaminated drinking water … [Kinder Morgan] must provide one or more alternate source(s) of drinking water for all persons who use water for human or animal consumption from the contaminated water source for the period of time during which contamination exists.” (Table of Conditions for an Environmental Assessment Certificate, Condition 26)

With this condition, the province clearly acknowledges the very real threat that the proposed pipeline poses to water in British Columbia.

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Government acknowledgment of risk and approval

The federal government has explicitly acknowledged this risk to drinking water but approved the proposed pipeline regardless.

The provincial government of British Columbia has implicitly acknowledged the severe threat to drinking water, but approved the proposed pipeline regardless.

Requiring Kinder Morgan to provide bottled water while water sources remain contaminated is neither a realistic nor a sustainable solution to the problem

Indigenous people must give prior consent for any economic activity on their ancestral lands, Pope Francis insisted Wednesday as the U.S. administration of Donald Trump seeks to advance construction on the $3.8-billion Dakota Access pipeline.

Francis, who met with representatives of Indigenous people attending a UN agricultural meeting, said the key issue facing them is how to reconcile the right to development with protection of their cultures and territories.

"In this regard, the right to prior and informed consent should always prevail," he said. "Only then is it possible to guarantee peaceful co-operation between governing authorities and Indigenous peoples, overcoming confrontation and conflict."....

There’s a legend, told by Tsleil-Waututh hereditary Chief George Sla-holt, about a time when the world was slowly being flooded. To escape, Sla-holt told ethnographer Pauline Johnson, the people of Burnaby Inlet built a huge canoe: “the most stupendous canoe the world has ever known.”

For months, the men carved a giant cedar while the women worked to braid cedar bark into a rope large enough to hold the canoe against rising tides. As the waters rose, the canoe was piled with provisions.

When the rising seas overwhelmed the land, the youngest generation of Tsleil Waututh children were sent out in the community canoe, where they rode out the flood thanks to the sacrifice and foresight of their parents. The story has been passed through the generations to herald the importance of resilience and community unity in times of crisis.

It’s an ancient tale of survival that resonates in these uncertain times....

The McGill Institute for the Study of Canada will be exploring the complexity of social licence in its “What is Social Licence” event on March 14 in Vancouver. The event is free and open to the public, though registration is encouraged (see below for details).

While tensions over social licence occur globally, British Columbia has a well-known reputation for public drama around social licence. In this province, the interests of oil producers, Indigenous communities and environmentalists often clash.

Trudeau has stressed the importance of resetting Canada’s relationship to its Indigenous communities, bringing Canadian goods to market, and action on climate change. But since taking office, these goals have collided.

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Confirmed panelists are:

Grand Chief Edward John (Akile Ch’oh), Tl’azt’en Nation; United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous IssuesTerry Beech, member of Parliament for Burnaby North-SeymourSusannah Pierce, director, External Affairs at LNG CanadaHarry Swain, associate fellow at the Centre for Global Studies, former deputy minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, former deputy industry minister

Candis Callison, associate professor at UBC’s Graduate School of Journalism, will be moderating.

..the portion i would like to highlight begins at the 10:35 mark. kanahus, daughter of arthur manuel who passed away not so long ago, speaks on the resistance and also mentions that the canadian border patrol was at standing rock last she was there amongst other police/security forces.

Premier Rachel Notley’s government, in its throne speech Thursday, announced it will seek intervener status on legal challenges to the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

“It’s important that we get these pipelines built, that we get shovels in the ground,” said Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd.

“We’re standing up for our industry.”

The $6.8-billion Trans Mountain project would triple the capacity of the line that runs from the Edmonton area to Metro Vancouver, increasing tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet seven-fold.

The project has the green light from the National Energy Board, the federal government, and the B.C. government, but faces legal challenges from environmental groups, municipalities and First Nations....

Last week Reuters revealed that U.S.-based pipeline company Kinder Morgan is approaching Canadian funders to raise money to triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline to 890,000 barrels a day. This would also quadruple the number of supertankers to more than 400 in B.C’s Burrard Inlet each year.

If you work or have worked in Canada, you are a contributor to the Canada Pension Plan. You have a say in whether or not your pension funds are used to pay for risky pipeline projects that fuel climate change and endanger coastal waters....

CPPIB is a creation of parliament and its legislation can be amended to give it a clearer mandate as to what consititutes proper investments. Until 2006 it was a very different kind of mix of investments. It also currently works well as a slush fund for Canada's investment firms. There is no reason not to make changes to its investment strategy it has already been done a couple of times.

"According to the 2013 Annual Report, about 63% of the fund's assets are now invested outside Canada, largely in the United States, Europe and Asia. In addition, the CPPIB has been broadening the scope of its investments to include emerging markets, although Mr. Denison, CEO at the time, would not pinpoint a specific country or area. “Canada as a single market cannot accommodate the future growth of our organization,” said Mr. Denison.

In recent years, the CPPIB changed direction in its investment philosophy. It evolved from investing exclusively in non-marketable government bonds to passive index-fund strategies and, in 2006, to active investment strategies."

...

"Using equity firms to assist in achieving targets for each asset class. The CPP reserve fund allocates certain amounts to various pre-qualified equity firms to be managed and used towards reaching the growth targets. For example, the CPP Investment Board hires private equity firms to help it invest in private companies, fund managers to help it invest in public equities, bond managers to assist in investing in bonds (within Canada and foreign bonds), and so forth."

An oily rainbow-like sheen on the waters surrounding a diesel fuel spill off the north coast of Vancouver Island cannot be cleaned up, sparking fears among a nearby First Nation that relies on clam digging for food and economic security.

The thin layer of fuel, which covered a 5.5 kilometre radius at one point outside the salmon farm where the spill originated, has been deemed unrecoverable because it cannot be captured by skimmer vessels or sorbent materials, British Columbia's Environment Ministry said.

Fuel has made contact with some shorelines in the Burdwood Island group, a sensitive area teeming with clam beds that the Kwikwasut'inuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation says are crucial to its economy.

"Would you put that sheen on your vegetable garden?" asked Bob Chamberlin, the nation's elected chief councillor. "They have no technology whatsoever to recover that sheen. That is utterly unacceptable."......

Chilliwack council is asking for all pipeline routing alternatives to exhausted to avoid residential disruption, in a letter of comment to be sent to the National Energy Board.

The NEB still has to approve Kinder Morgan’s final route for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, and council was focused on the section between Watson elementary and Deerfield Crescent.

Council's letter to the NEB will contain a request that BC Hydro provide its rationale and justification for deciding there's "no possibility of proceeding" with the route P1, which would follow the BC Hydro right-of-way instead of going through residential neighbourhoods.

Chilliwack's letter to the NEB will focus on five key considerations for pipeline routing, approved Tuesday by council, along with an amendment indicating council's concern for the pipeline location....

We are in the beginning stages of organizing a community festival on Burnaby Mountain.

Our goals are to:
- Bringing the community together
- Help people get up close and personal with the Kinder Morgan expansion plan
- Bring people to the realities of the tank farm, learn more about how this affects all people along the route especially from remote areas of Alberta, to the mouth of the Burrard inlet
- Celebrate/Support International and National Day of Climate Action April 29th
- Celebrate/Support all the local groups in the collective social justice and environmental movements
- To provide a platform and voice to people, communities and groups

On a cold afternoon in late February, a small group of teachers, students and activists gathered outside the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan office on Yonge Street to offer up a fossil fuel-inspired rendition of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “Hey, teachers, keep it in the ground.”

While some 700 institutions in 76 countries have committed to divesting a total of $5 trillion from fossil fuel companies, the OTPP continues to pour a hefty $24.8 billion of its $170 billion in total retirement holdings into dirty oil, coal and natural gas projects, and the pipelines that enable them.

Efforts are afoot to get divestment motions on the floor for debate at the annual general meetings of both the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA) and Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation this weekend. For the past few years, an array of motions around urging the unions to divest in fossil fuels have been put forward but haven't made it to the floor for voting.

But with Naomi Klein speaking at OECTA's meeting on Mon, March 13, there is hope this year teachers will finally get moving on divestment.

Says elementary school teacher Kim Fry, a former Greenpeace forest campaigner and organizer of the OTPP protest, "There are some higher up folks in union that have been pretty aggressive with me about not talking about this."

When reports emerged last month that Kinder Morgan was in talks with OTPP, the Canadian Pension Plan and others to help finance its $6.8 billion pipeline expansion, which is now due to begin construction in September, the OTPP was slow to distance itself from the project. The OTPP finally denied involvement in the project in a tweet February 27: “Ontario Teachers’ is not in talks to finance Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion.” Ontario Teachers’ also quietly ditched its Enbridge stock back in September in the face of violent police crackdown on protests in North Dakota over the gas giant's $1.5 billion stake in the contentious Dakota Access Pipeline....

Here in British Columbia, indigenous opposition to Kinder Morgan quietly (to the outside world) recently reached an important milestone, too. On February 16, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) met and committed to finding a way to ban bitumen in their territories.

I attended this summit and was honoured to make a presention to them on the impacts of oilsands pipelines. In 2011, I watched my own community of Little Buffalo, Alberta, deal with the aftermath of the province’s second-largest pipeline spill. Community members, including small children, experienced nausea, burning eyes and headaches after a leak of nearly 30,000 barrels which leeched into the muskeg, a bog ecosystem connected to all the water in the region, supporting life over thousands of years.

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The UBCIC resolution reiterates endorsement of the Coastal First Nations Tanker Ban and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, acknowledges the legal proceedings begun by 14 indigenous communities against Kinder Morgan, and calls out the flawed National Energy Board approval process.

“Diluted bitumen contains toxic chemicals that are a threat to drinking water, health, and the well-being of salmon and other beings,” the resolution says.

It further calls on the executive to “work with affected members to seek adequate resources to support its work and engage technical advisors to develop and implement an integrated strategy to oppose the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain tankers and pipelines project.”

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs will actively take steps to see this through, including “strategies grounded in Indigenous territorial authority,” undertaking financial strategies, focusing on health and water protection, collaborating with indigenous and non-indigenous allies alike, and possible “legal challenges to the federal approval.”

No individuals blocked the resolution.

In response to the threat from Kinder Morgan of noise pollution and a decline in marine environment, the UBCIC further moved to defend orcas, which enjoy federal protection under the Species at Risk Act and Marine Mammal Regulations of the Fisheries Act.

On March 22, three Yukon First Nations will be in the Supreme Court of Canada to defend the iconic Peel watershed and the integrity of treaties. This will be the culmination of a three-year legal battle to protect 80 per cent of the Peel watershed from mining, oil and gas extraction - the moment that makes or breaks the Peel.

One of Canada’s natural wonders, the Peel watershed is one of the largest unspoiled natural areas left in North America.The six crystal-clear rivers that flow into the Peel River – the Ogilvie, Blackstone, Hart, Wind, Bonnet Plume and Snake Rivers - are the lifeblood of this ecosystem. Grizzly bears, wolves, and caribou roam freely in this land of rugged mountains, pure rivers and boreal forest - the longest land mammal migration on Earth! Owing to its environmental significance, the Peel forms the northern anchor of the Yellowstone to Yukon wildlife corridor. It is now at risk of being demolished.

Industry and government covet the area for its mineral wealth - and the result is a determination to open the area to extractive industries. The historic moment in the Supreme Court on March 22 will only happen because the the First Nations of Na-Cho Nyak Dun, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, and Vuntut Gwitchin fought against efforts to carve up this intact landscape with every ounce of courage and determination through years of litigation in the lower courts. They should not face this last battle alone.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, which will likely be released later in 2017, will require a precedent-setting interpretation of Yukon’s modern-day treaties. If the First Nations win, the Peel will become the largest protected area in North America - seven time as big as Yellowstone National Park!

On 25 January 2017, more than 50 BC community groups - from across the province and representing faith, human rights, environmental and other perspectives - sent this letter to 190 municipalities and regional districts across the province. The letter asks our local governments to take action to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the climate costs that our communities are suffering. Click here for the letter in .pdf form.

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We – as BC-based community groups – support the Climate Law in our Hands Initiative and are asking you to:

1. Demand fossil fuel accountability

It has been rare for anyone to even ask the fossil fuel industry to take responsibility for its role in causing the global crisis – and the local climate impacts like floods, wildfires and droughts. This avoidance of responsibility ends in BC – when you, and other local governments across the province, write to the world’s fossil fuel companies asking them to take their fair share of responsibility for climate change.

This demand can take the form of a detailed invoice for climate costs or a letter simply enquiring as to the company’s position on paying a fair share. It can be tailored to reflect the needs and capacity of each community.[3]

2. Work towards a class action lawsuit

BC communities can demand accountability from the fossil fuel industry in a variety of ways, but if necessary, we may need local governments to demand accountability through the courts.

Lawyers at West Coast Environmental Law have exhaustively researched how a class action – a joint legal action brought by one or more “representatives” of BC’s local governments – could be brought against major fossil fuel companies for their role in causing climate change.

We ask you to consider whether your municipality would be willing to launch a class action as a representative and/or how you might support a case launched by other local governments. BC communities need to come together and get behind this type of legal action. Bringing this case will make it clear that fossil fuel companies cannot avoid a legal conversation about accountability – and if we win, we will set a precedent that could change the world – putting us on a global path that will avoid more dangerous climate change.[4]

Galvanized around First Nations’ leadership role in the Kinder Morgan pipeline fight, a pair of edgy theatre offerings this month confronted Vancouver audiences with the intertwined issues of indigenous rights and environmental justice.

And at the Firehall, David Diamond’s Theatre for Living mounted šxʷʔam̓ət (home), an earnestly provocative psychodrama probing the prospects and pitfalls of Truth and Reconciliation between Canada’s First Nations and the rest of us....

The prime minister of Canada was attending a high-powered energy summit in Houston, Texas on March 9, where he was toasted for his global leadership on energy and the environment. He told the crowd of executives and politicians that he would be treating them to “a little family history.”

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No country, argued Trudeau, “would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.”

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But some see a blockbuster deal this month by that company, Royal Dutch Shell plc, as a kind of confirmation that everything has changed.

Shell has a long, storied history boosting oilsands development. Yet on the same day Trudeau was saying he’d never make the same mistake as his father, Shell announced it was divesting $7.25 billion USD of its oilsands interests, staying on only as an operator of an oil upgrader, and of a carbon capture and storage project.

“Shell was betting its future on the oilsands,” said Lorne Stockman, a senior research analyst at Oil Change International in Washington, D.C., in an interview.

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Yet the Shell step-back comes just weeks after it was reported that ExxonMobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips were removing billions of dollars and billions of barrels of oil off their books, at least for the time being. Other companies like Total SA and Nexen, a subsidiary of a Chinese national oil firm, have stepped away from projects or assets in recent years.

As a result of low prices in 2016, Exxon's entire 3.5 billion barrels of bitumen at the Kearl Oil Sands Project no longer qualified as proved reserves under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidelines, said spokeswoman Lauren Kerr. "These revisions are not expected to affect the operation of the underlying projects or to alter the company’s outlook for future production volumes," she said. A representative from Conoco declined to comment.

MONDAY we are so fortunate to be hosting the second stop of the west coast Standing Rock Water Protector Tour, put on by Honour the Earth. Join us for a night of music, speakers and strategies of resistance from the heart of the front lines. Show your support and become part of a movement started at Standing Rock and now spreading across Turtle Island.

We invite you to join the Peoples Climate Movement on Saturday, April 29th as we march to:

· Advance solutions to the climate crisis that are rooted in racial, social and economic justice and committed to protecting front-line communities and workers.
· Protect our right to clean air, water, land, healthy communities and a world at peace.
· Demand recognition of Indigenous Sovereignty, respect for existing Treaties and the right of First Nations to Free, Prior and Informed Consent for all projects on their traditional and unceded territories.
· Immediately take steps to support immigrants, refugees and communities of color and LGBTQ2I communities impacted by the attacks on them south of the border and by the dislocation caused by global climate change
· Ensure public funds and investments create good paying green jobs that provide a family-sustaining wage and benefits and preserve workers’ rights, including the right to unionize.
· Fund investments in our communities, people and environment to transition to a new clean and renewable energy economy that works for all.
· Protect our basic rights to a free press, protest and free speech

That said, even using 2017's number, the company can pay a much higher dividend starting next year, assuming it finds a partner for Trans Mountain.

Yeah, the big guys push investment then get out leaving the little guys holding the bag through pension funds and other investments. Good to know they have failed to find a partner for the pipeline (so far). Burnaby doesn't want it. There are court cases pending. It's not a done deal. Far from it.

When Saik'uz First Nation and the Yinka Dene Alliance first joined other First Nations to declare that the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines and tankers project would not be permitted in our territories, there were many people who said the project was too big to stop.

But after more than a decade of fighting the project at community rallies, shareholder meetings and in the courts, Northern Gateway is finally dead. The fight against Enbridge was about upholding our own indigenous laws to protect the lands and waters that we all rely on, and we knew that this work was bigger than any pipeline.

That is why the Yinka Dene Alliance is donating the remainder of the money we raised in our Northern Gateway battle to the Pull Together fundraising campaign for First Nations challenging the federal approval of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain project in court. It is also why I recently travelled to the Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh (in Vancouver) to speak at an event supporting the Pull Together fundraising campaign....

Here is a good article that shows that for all provinces except Alberta there is little to no economic benefit to expanding the tar sands. For BC it is a matter of taking most of the risks of exporting the toxic sludge and getting peanuts in return for encreaseed jobs and other economic activity.

"Highlights:

A tripling of tar sands could contribute ~3.7% of Canadian GDP over those 25 years.

According to CERI, around 94% of benefits would go to Alberta, producing perhaps a third of their province's GDP.

The remaining 6% of benefits would be spread out over the rest of Canada, producing less then one half of one percent of GDP for any other province.

CERI says "Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec receive the highest impact" outside Alberta. BC would see the highest percent of GDP from tripling bitumen extraction: 0.4% of GDP."

The workshops being offered are those that land defenders have requested that supporters be trained in. On Sunday we will join together in a process to create a more organized network, connected to and responsible to frontline Indigenous communities and their particular needs.

Sessions include:

1. Private Indigenous Land Defenders Gathering

2. Urban Indigenous Caucus

3. Environmental Racism in Chemical Valley and Resistance to Line 9 with Vanessa Gray, Anishinaabe’kwe from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation

Come out and show your support for 100% fossil fuel divestment within the next 5 years!

ChangeSFU will be hosting a rally of unprecedented size on SFU's Burnaby campus on Wednesday March 29th. The event will be composed of live music, slam poetry, and a succession of speakers including several SFU professors. Come stop by!

Wrong. The Prince Rupert LNG Project is a legacy planning stage project inherited with the purchase of British Gas Group. It's cancellation has nothing to do with Shell et al's LNG Canada project in Kitimat, BC.

100% fossil fuel divestment in 5 years? How is this lofty goal possible? And, if it is, who will pay the astronomical cost of such a scheme? Reality challenged ideas like this make a mockery of logical plans to move toward renewable energy at a sustainable, affordable pace. It's a good thing there is live music and slam poetry. Some circus music, preferably played on a steam calliope will also be helpful.

Universities are the place for out of the box thinking and exploring the outer edges of changing dynamics but are any of the participants from the STEM disciplines there to explain the difficulties and costs of this scheme?

..i found this worth the time. in his address, stewart phillip calls on folks to get involved in the bc election. while jackie thomas describes the successful and brilliant struggle against northern gateway.

Our hearts are full after a day of profound learning and joyful solidarity. Why we fight, and why we must win, is outlined poignantly in the words of Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Chief Jackie Thomas, and all of the speakers who made our Pull Together Vancouver kickoff event such a resounding success. Please watch and share these video highlights: skip to the bottom for the full 2.5 hour live event recording.

In 2011, the National Energy Board (NEB) provided Kinder Morgan with a favourable and unprecedented ruling when it allocated guaranteed access to the dock under 10-year take-or-pay contracts with five crude oil shippers.

Kinder Morgan promised that 79,000 barrels a day of tidewater access would lead to the development of international markets for Alberta’s crude.

It didn’t....

2) Energy East Won’t Reduce Reliance on Foreign Oil

“The lamentable state of crude oil pipeline infrastructure makes parts of this country reliant on foreign oil and our petroleum exporters dependent on the United States, which buys Canadian product at a deep discount,” wrote Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald in the Hill Times.

Eastern Canada has a dependency on imported oil because the refineries located there are configured to process primarily light oil. Energy East is intended to facilitate the transport of diluted bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands so will not reduce eastern Canada’s reliance on imported crude to any significant degree.....

3) Canadian Oil Producers Are Not Truly Dependent on U.S. Markets

Some suggest that Canadian producers are somehow dependent on U.S. markets. The majority of Canadian producers are not “dependent” on the US. They have integrated refinery operations there. To a significant extent Canadian producers supply their own crude to themselves or their joint-venture partners as U.S. refiners.

When Suncor sells into its Commerce City, Colorado, refinery, or Cenovus supplies its facilities in Wood River, Illinois, and Borger, Texas, owned in a joint venture with Phillips 66, or Husky supplies its refinery in Toledo, Ohio, it owns in partnership with BP, or Imperial and its parent, ExxonMobile, deliver crude from their joint venture to ExxonMobile’s U.S. facilities, it is hardly accurate to suggest that they are “dependent” on the U.S. market.

4) Canadian Oil Is Not Selling at a ‘Discount’

Many argue that the U.S. “buys Canadian product at a deep discount,” but that’s incorrect. There is a natural price discount between U.S. oil and Canadian heavy oil that will always exist because of quality and transportation cost differences....

"This is a global movement and not just a fight against another dirty pipeline… This is not simply an indigenous issue; climate change and the catastrophic impacts that we have witnessed to date and the potential impacts that will manifest in the future, are a matter of grave concern of all people around the world.”

-Stewart Phillip, Grand Chief of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs

From May 25th-28th, we will march from Songhees territory in Victoria to the Kinder Morgan terminal on Tsleil-Waututh territory in Burnaby to show our support for and solidarity with the 22 municipalities, 59 First Nations and hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who oppose the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion.